


gaudete

by nothanksweregood (foreverkneeld)



Series: straight for your heart (wolfpack au) [17]
Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Werewolf, Christmas Fluff, Cuddling & Snuggling, Foster Care, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-25
Updated: 2018-12-25
Packaged: 2019-09-26 20:21:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,881
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17148479
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/foreverkneeld/pseuds/nothanksweregood
Summary: The time of grace has come—What we have wished for.Christmas morning at the Tomlinson-Malik house.





	gaudete

**Author's Note:**

> happy solstice/merry christmas to those of you who celebrate! if you are intensely un-religious you might want to skip this one, as there are excerpts from the book of Luke herein.

 

 _ _Gaudete, gaudete!__  
Christus est natus  
Ex Maria virgine,  
gaudete!

* * *

 

It’s five fifty seven in the morning.

Louis hadn’t gotten to bed until nearly two the night before.

There’s hushed giggles and whispers happening behind the bedroom door.

It’s a math equation that he could solve in his sleep, which is good, because they had told them ‘not before six’ and damn it he is getting those last three minutes of sleep before they’re invaded.

In the part of his brain that’s not solely occupied with groaning and gnashing of teeth, he’s thankful that, to a man (to a child?), they’re comfortable enough to wait outside the bedroom door of two male alphas and not be afraid.

Peggy of course, has never known fear in her life (and thank God for that), but it wasn’t so long ago that Jeff and Gina and Jim were having weekly meetings to scold each other for perceived bad behaviour out of the belief that they would be sent away if they weren’t perfect children out of a Sunday school story at all times.

There’s a particularly high pitched whisper and Louis winces. Beside him, Zayn doesn’t stir. Lucky bugger could literally sleep through the apocalypse and probably has every intention of doing so.

Sighing, Louis allows himself one last luxurious stretch before he throws back the duvet and shuffles over to the door, throwing it open and eyeing the culprits with a mock-fierce glare. “What’s this then?” He looks at his empty wrist. “I still have a good forty seconds left, I’ll have you know!” He frowns menacingly at Liam, who is crouched with Jim on his hip and trying not to giggle. “And you! You’ll have to be penalized for this, my lad!”

Suiting action to the word, he leans over and smacks a kiss on Liam’s rosy cheek before turning to the others. “But I suppose it wouldn’t be fair to just punish one of you. Line up, then.”

As solemnly as they can manage in between fits of the giggles, they line up along the hallway and Louis goes down the line and distributes kisses all around, ending with a particularly loud smack on Harry’s mouth, because of course Harry would show up just in time to be kissed. 

Duty done, he steps back and surveys them.

Gina, hardly able to contain her excitement and clearly aided and abetted by Peggy, who at three is only just old enough to remember last Christmas at all but is very excited by the general air of the household.

Jeff, now fourteen and attempting to convey by his overt air of nonchalance that he’s much too old now for all this fuss and is only here because he had nothing better to do.

And Jim, still shy and withdrawn most days, but dark eyes shining with the promise of an entire day and most of the week with all his brothers and sisters home with him and no visitors save those he knows and trusts.

Liam, just as excited as the kids and not a bit shy now about showing it, and Harry with little River on his hip, still mostly asleep with his thumb in his mouth, Harry’s curls a tangled mess and generous mouth already looking like Louis had spent a half hour doing nothing but kissing it.

“All right, then,” Louis says, finally, not even trying to hide his smile. “In with you.”

There’s a general clamour of joyful shrieking and they all make a dive for the bed at once.

Louis and Zayn may have a California King (“iiiiiin this CAAAAAAAliFORNIA kIIIIIIING bed”, as Harry sings every time anyone mentions it) but the sudden addition of seven more bodies is enough to strain even its limits. As the genius problem solver he is, Louis fixes part of the problem by tossing Gina on top of Zayn’s still form and pulling Liam and Jim into his lap sideways.

Jeff settles at the end of the bed, mindful of his teenaged dignity, and Harry settles with the two toddlers on Zayn’s other side. 

“Well, now that we’re all here -” Louis begins, only to be instantly shouted down by a chorus of “NIALL’S NOT HERE!!!”

Louis fakes astonishment. “What? Are you sure? Perhaps he’s just under the covers with Zayn?”

This prompts another round of giggles and plenty of prodding of Zayn’s splayed and covered limbs.

Zayn still doesn’t wake and no Niall is revealed.

“Well!” Louis huffs a wide eyed breath. “This will never do. We can’t begin without our Niall!”

“I’ll fetch him!”Jim volunteers, small voice still a neverending source of delight and pride to Louis after so many years of not hearing it.

“I’m here,” Comes a smiling voice from the doorway, and sure enough, Niall is there in his plaid striped pajamas they’d gotten him last year after feeling all the ones in the shop to be sure they were the very softest ones. “Was just getting the book, wasn’t I.”

He’s holding an old, worn Bible in one hand. It had belonged to Louis’ Gran, who had been so excited when he’d asked her for one that she’d nearly cried.

Sometimes he sees Niall or Liam looking at it just a touch wistfully, and he knows they’re thinking of their own grandparents, none of whom have any idea where they are or if they’re even alive, and it makes him even more fiercely glad for his mum and his mum’s mum and their whole mad, sad, but holding-tight family.

Everyone immediately squinches closer on the bed to make room, and Niall runs a hand over Jim’s curls and Gina’s flyaway braid before handing the book over to Louis.

They’d talked, when Peggy came, of what sorts of Christmas traditions they wanted to have. Louis and Zayn first, privately, and then checking in with the others, about whether there were anything they had done growing up that they would like to be sure and do, or if there were things they needed to stay away from.

Harry had immediately brightened and asked if they could decorate cookies and have a gingerbread house contest and go around the town to see all the lights and watch Love, Actually and Zayn had cut him off gently with a ‘maybe let one of the others suggest some things too and we’ll circle back around?’

Liam had simply said that all the things Harry said sounded good but could they please maybe not go caroling at care homes because he always used to have to do it and it made him feel sick inside the whole time.

Niall had not said anything besides could he please think about it for a while.

When he came back, two days later, he’d come in at bedtime and sat on the edge of Louis and Zayn’s bed and begun without preamble, “I had to think about whether it would be a good thing or not, but - we always used to do the Christmas Eve service, and midnight mass. I used to - me da and I used to go, together, just the two of us. I wasn’t sure if it would be. Okay. In me head, like. But I’ve thought about it and I think - I’d like to go, if I could.”

“Of course,” Louis had said, immediate.

“Whatever you want,” Zayn agreed, adding, “Never been to a Christian service before, have I.”

“Oh!” Niall looked worried. “I didn’t mean, like - no one else needs to come, if you don’t - I mean, I wouldn’t want to make you uncomfortable, Zayn.”

Zayn had looked puzzled for a second before he laughed, leaning in slowly to press a kiss to Niall’s forehead. “You’re the sweetest one I know, lovey, for thinking of it, but I’m all right. We do Eid stuff for me, yeah? I’m fine to do the Christmas stuff with you lot.”

“We’ll go together,” Louis promised, and then frowned. “Maybe not the little ones, to the Midnight one, but definitely the Christmas Eve. It’ll be nice.”

They’d gone to the service and Louis had been too concerned with making sure none of the kids set fire to themselves or anyone else with the tiny white candles provided to really take in much of the service, but from what he heard it was nice, comfortable.

The reading of the Christmas story first thing Christmas morning was Louis’ sole contribution. Besides a general air of Christmas and holiday cheer, obviously, because he’s amazing and Christmas practically was invented for him anyway. His mum had always read it to them, first thing, and even if he’s not sure where he stands on the actual truth of it one day to the next, the familiar words are still comforting.

“All right, then.” Louis opens the worn book carefully and even more carefully turns the fragile pages. “The Gospel according to Luke. Chapter Two, verse One. It came to pass in those days...”

Peggy tucks her thumb into her mouth, leaning sleepily into Harry, who runs an absent hand through her red-gold curls. River has gone straight back to sleep, in wolf form this time, and Jeff has forgone his dignity enough to cuddle him close.

Gina is plaiting the visible bits of Zayn’s hair as Liam redoes her own braids and Louis’ heart is aching with something nameless as he reads and watches them all.

At his side, Niall leans up and kisses just under his jaw and Louis smiles as he continues, “she brought forth her first-born son, and wrapped him in swaddling cloths, and laid him in a manger, for there was no room for them in the inn.”

“I don’t like that part,” Gina interrupts.

Louis looks up. “I don’t either,” he agrees.

“They should have shared a bed, like we do!”

“That’s a great idea, Gina-love.”

“All my ideas are good ideas.” She says with the supreme confidence of a ten year old.

Louis raises an eyebrow and she huffs and rolls her eyes but amends, 

“As long as they don’t hurt me or anybody else.”

“Good girl.” Louis leans over enough to give her a kiss and then continues, “and there were in the same country...”

He has just arrived at “they came with haste, and found Mary and Joseph and the babe, lying in the manger -” when he glances up and sees Zayn is awake at last, one bright eye peering up at him from the pillows.

Louis touches the backs of his knuckles to Zayn’s cheek, soft, and feels Zayn nuzzle into them as Louis concludes,

“But Mary kept all these things, and pondered them in her heart.”

He feels very like Mary, in this moment, tired with the troubles and toils of a long year, but surrounded by miracles and wonders and love in unexpected places.

His family doesn’t look like most people’s and their house in the coming days is going to border on being too full, but here in this moment, with all of his pack gathered safe around him and century old words falling gently in the spaces between them, he understands a little of the wonder the shepherds must have felt at finding a saviour in a cave.

* * *

 

 _Tempus adest gratiæ_  
Hoc quod optabamus,  
Carmina lætitiæ  
Devote reddamus.

**Author's Note:**

> all verses taken from the KJV edition, cause you can't beat it for flair if not for accuracy. unbetaed, bc i wanted to get it up before christmas proper. also, yes, it's a cave. jesus was born in a cave bc thats what they used for stables. also the wise men didnt show up for at least another few months. the more u know!!!!!
> 
> the title is from the traditionally christmas carol 'Gaudete' from the 16th century, and i highly recommend the king's singers version!


End file.
